2002年毕业于兰州大学资源与环境学院地质工程专业，研究生学历，工学博士，研究馆员。
曾任敦煌研究院院长，现任文化和旅游部党组成员、故宫博物院院长。
主要从事石窟、古代壁画和土遗址保护，文化遗产监测预警与预防性保护等方面的研究。1991年开始文物保护工作以来，主持完成全国重点文物保护单位保护维修工程60余项，承担国家及省部级课题近20项，主持或作为主要参与人完成与美国、日本、英国、澳大利亚等国相关文化遗产保护和管理机构开展的国际合作项目10余项，发表学术论文170余篇，第一作者出版《土遗址保护关键技术研究》《古代壁画规范研究》等专著6部，获国家或省部级科技奖励10多项，何梁何利奖科学与技术创新奖获得者，授权技术发明专利20余件，主持完成国家及行业技术标准5项，被授予“全国优秀科技工作者”“宣传文化系统拔尖创新人才”“甘肃省五一劳动奖章”“文化部优秀专家”“甘肃省优秀专家”“甘肃省先进工作者”等多项荣誉称号，入选国家百千万人才工程和甘肃省领军人才工程。
Born in February 1967 in Shandan, Gansu Province, China, Dr. Wang Xudong graduated in 2002 from Lanzhou University's College of Earth and Environmental Sciences with a Ph.D. in Geological Engineering.
Dr. Wang has served as the Director of Dunhuang Academy. He is now a member of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's CPC Leadership Team, and Director of the Palace Museum (at vice-ministerial level).
joined Dunhuang Academy in June 1991, serving consecutively as the academy's Deputy Director, Executive Deputy Director and Director.
Dr. Wang's work has focused primarily on the conservation of caves, ancient mural paintings and earthen sites, as well as research into monitoring and early warning systems and the preventive conservation of cultural heritage. Since 1991, when he began his career in heritage conservation, he has presided over sixty conservation projects at nationally protected key cultural heritage sites, undertaken nearly twenty national, provincial or ministerial-level projects, and presided over or participated in more than ten international cooperation projects with cultural heritage protection and management institutions in other countries such as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia. He has published over 170 academic papers and six monographs as primary author, including Key Earthen Site Conservation Technology Research and Normative Research on Ancient Mural Paintings. He has also received over ten national, provincial or ministerial-level science and technology awards, as well as winning the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation's Science and Technology Innovation Award. Dr. Wang has also obtained more than twenty technical patents, and presided over the compilation of five National and Industry Technology Standards. He has been granted many titles and awards, including 'Nationwide Outstanding Scientific and Technological Worker', 'Top Innovative Talent in the Publicity and Culture System', 'Gansu Province May 1st Labor Medal', 'Excellent Ministry of Culture Expert', 'Outstanding Gansu Province Expert', and 'Gansu Province Advanced Worker'. He has also been selected as a member of the National Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talents Project as well as Gansu Province's Leading Talents Project.
